A ministry all our own

It’s time, says Andy Rickell that ”joined-up government” went all the way with the creation of a Ministry for Disabled People

Historically, ministers are appointed to be the political leaders in each of the ministries or departments of government, like the Department of Health, Department of Work and Pensions etc.

Each minister recognises their position and status first and foremost by the department they lead, and is accountable for what it does. Although in theory ministers have a collective responsibility via the Cabinet, their departmental role often emphasises the importance of individual departments and what they do more than the impact they have as a whole government. It creates a silo mentality, where departments compete with each other and cooperation is undermined.

The whole machinery of government is inevitably a large and complex thing to manage. No simple solution is perfect, and the departmental approach at least has some sense – organising government on the basis of specialist areas of activity. However this approach inevitably does not help those citizens who depend on the activity of several departments, and most of all it fails to help disabled citizens, who are more affected by or depend on the activity of more parts of government than any other citizen.

For some years now this weakness has been recognised and the solution is said to be “joined-up government” – where different parts of government at all levels cooperate – which for instance at the local level might be the NHS and social services. Sometimes things improve, but often it depends on individual civil servants to make it work, and overall disabled people’s experience is that their lives are affected adversely by poorly
joined-up public services.

To make joined-up government work for disabled people and everyone else it has to be joined-up at the very top. Top ministers need to get their role and status from their responsibility to make government work for particular beneficiaries. Departments should be run by junior ministers, who should be accountable to senior ministers who would have cross-cutting power to knock departmental heads together to deliver for particular key groups of citizens. One of the new super ministers should be a senior minister or secretary of state for disabled people, because of the number of disabled people, our status in society, and the impact that government activity has on our lives.

It would require a leap of imagination for a new prime minister, but it would change government from something run by bureaucrats to something more accountable to the people they serve.

This type of ministerial joint working sometimes happens already. The Life Chances Ministerial Group is a group of ministers from different departments under the chairing of the Minister for Disabled People whose responsibility is to achieve the outcomes in the Life Chances report. But the ministers are junior and crucially the Treasury is missing. It needs the Minister for Disabled People to have senior minister status and power to give our equality the priority we want.